auto-correct

[bad-advice-signs]

[molabuddy]

ok this is a little stupid maybe but we kind of hate how "deep quotes" poetry are spread around with Zero care about crediting the original author. like for every bit of uncredited poetry you see on instagram or tiktok there was someone who actually Wrote that. First. That was poetry that they wrote. but if they're not famous enough then people just take their stuff without credit!! & its so normalised! and then it becomes literally nearly impossible to find the original or the author's name?

and i think a lot of ppl think the kind of poetry that gets shared around like this is like. lame and derivitive and "well anyone could write that" so they don't process this as art theft in the same way as someone reposting visual art. and i guess i can see that. but i think no matter how you feel about it it still deserves basic respect as art. and the artist deserves basic respect as the artist. idk.

[nixliz]

an introspective of the stagnation of creepypasta from the perspective of a creepypasta author since 2014

for the past couple of years due to the resurgence of creepypastas amongst a very young demographic, the meaning of 'creepypasta' has gotten so watered down it's effectively lost all meaning.

i've been writing creepypasta since 2014, using the genre as a cheesy way to become a better writer. all of my stories from back then are garbage, of course - what matters to me is the fact that i made them and improved as an artist in the process. if not for creepypastas, i wouldn't be nowhere near a good a writer as i am nowadays, and i honestly owe alot of it to how blunt the creepypasta fanbase was at the time. if a story sucked, you'd hear about it - while this was definitely not done in good faith, a side effect of this meant you ended up picking up on overdone cliches, bad writing and bad characterization just by reading these stories you're constantly told are "bad". by reading them with the foresight of KNOWING they aren't good, there's alot of information you can gleam. you pick up on parts of the story you can recognize as bad, and leave having a better knowledge of what Not to do when writing a story.

of course nowadays the creepypasta community's effectively died off and been replaced by children who care more about powerscaling their edgy sonic ocs than actually writing anything.

it'd be easy for me to just say that the creation and resurgence of sonic.exe is precisely what killed creepypasta as a whole, and in a sense it's not wrong, but i personally believe the thing that killed the genre is less about the story everyone idolizes and more about the culture that the story's appeal ended up cultivating.

sonic.exe fans have always existed. even back in 2014, there were tons of kids obsessed with it. i feel like that initial surge of popularity, while frustrating to many due to the poor quality of the original story, the community was ultimately harmless. they were just socially awkward kids being awkward and making their own stories. the part that i find admirable about the exe community back then is the key word, "Stories". if a kid back in the day liked sonic.exe, they'd download gamemaker and make their own game, or they'd go to the creepypasta/SOG wiki and write their own story. were they any good? more often than not, no. but the effort that went into creating media just out of an appreciation for a dumb story you liked is nothing short of admirable. of course there were stinkers - one of the first ever fan stories was a complete, beat-for-beat ripoff of a sonic creepypasta that came BEFORE exe, but regardless, there was alot of genuine effort behind these fanworks. for lack of better word, there was alot of soul - something the current community lacks.

sonic.exe recently got its second wind (in the form of an fnf mod of all things lol) and now everyone and their grandma knows about it. however, my hatred of the current community stems from something i never see brought up. if someone's bitching about sonic.exe it's only ever about the things you can actually hold people accountable for, like the massively rampant amount of abusers/pdfiles lurking around every corner (and yes, this is extremely prevalent in the community and needs to be addressed) but my problem lies in the lack of sincerety every recent piece of fanwork has. people nowadays don't care about making a story - and this is a problem that seems to infect a LOT of horror media, especially indie games - they care more about making a recognizable mascot.

look at any sonic.exe derivitive made after 2022 (most use the term horrorbrew, i don't know why they don't just use the term creepypasta or exe because there's nothing exactly making them stand out). nine times out of 10, you're not going to find any sort of game, or story, or any official media they're actually attached to. more often than not, they're just a *mascot* for a nonexistent story. that's where my problem lies - there's no more passion in writing creepypastas anymore. the part that people only seem to care about anymore is the recognizable mascot, the 'face' of a creepypasta, so they trim everything that isn't the mascot away, and i feel like doing this completely defeats the purpose of making creepypasta. if you don't believe me, every single creepypasta that people still talk about are ones that have a recognizable 'mascot' - squidward's suicide, suicidemouse, sonic.exe, i hate you, godzilla nes - while ones that don't have an overarcing antagonist or image (noend house, SAR woods) are basically forgotten. people don't care about the stories anymore, they only care about the antagonist. they see the scary, bloody-eyed sonic in the thumbnail of the story and think "i can do that". and when you see one of these nu-exe's actually try and make a story to pair with its mascot, it's either really contrived and tries to take itself way too seriously (needlemouse) or extremely derivitive of other media (sonic limited edition). this has also led to my least favorite trend of the nu creepypasta community, the trend of 'retaking' old pastas and cramming as many analog horror/exe tropes as possible into them. vibingleaf's content is the biggest offender - all he does is take old stories, slap a vhs filter on them, and (in the case of stories without an overarcing villain like the grieving) add some completely unfitting villain character who serves only to give the remake a marketable 'face' for the thumbnail. and people act like his remakes are the DEFINITIVE WAY TO ENJOY THESE STORIES! THEY AREN'T! STOP SAYING THEY'RE OBJECTIVELY BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL! in the case of these inoffensive creepypastas, there's probably nothing more disrespectful than trying to 'one up' the original story! you're just putting another indie artist down so you can soak up all the attention like a douchebag! make and enjoy remakes because YOU want to make them - don't make them just to drag your fellow artists through the mud, damnit!

of course as much of a grouch i am about the state of creepypasta today, there's stuff i've seen that falls into this sort of creepypasta umbrella that i'm actually quite a fan of, even if they commit some of the things i hate to see. my favorite example would be that fake spongebob broadcast interruption (i have no idea if this is the original video because it's gone through retake hell but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0DMBZmuf1Y ). it commits alot of the things i don't like in modern creepypastas - it has a scary spongebob in it that seems to only exist to give the story a mascot and i feel like having the interrupted footage be stereotypically 'scary' doesn't fit the whole 'mentally ill nickelodeon employee tampering with footage' vibe the ending gives off but, in my humble opinion, it stands on its own as an interesting little story and there's alot i enjoy about it despite its faults. i like it because someone had an IDEA - and while that idea may have been derivitive of other lost media stories, it stands on its own and is enjoyable. more creators need to strive to make content like this. care more about making an interesting STORY, not an interesting CHARACTER. someone from the exe community, if given the same prompt, would've instead just drew a scary spongebob, named him some shit like "The Poriferan" and had someone else make an fnf mod about it - this guy went through the effort of fleshing their prompt out, and i have nothing but respect for them for doing so.

rant over. creepypasta means alot to me as a person and i owe the community alot for indirectly teaching me how to write and how (not) to create horror content, so it genuinely hurts seeing how badly the community has fallen.

[skeletalsepulchre]

@dokidokidraws im @ing you in this because i hate long posts and the og rb chain is long enough. hope u dont mind. and if u do idc by the time u read this its done. and im only entertaining this bc im in a good mood and life of boris released a new cooking video

your problem isnt necessarily the technical definition you give. that's like, fine. sure. but the problem is how youre using it. youre treating transformative works/arts as an ART term, and not a LAW term. which it is.

derivitive (which is the broader category) and transformative are terms used to try and decide the legality of a piece of work. (also, transformative goes beyond the idea of fandom-- something like painting a photo belonging to someone else is considered transformative or derivitive, depending on a few criteria) in your initial argument, you posit transformative as an art term that implies the art is all Inherently Good, Deserves to Exist, and Is Immune to Criticism, seeing as my original post is just that: criticism of the art people make. (which...like....oh boy wait till you hear about what art critics do). this is not what transformative means. it just means those silly little minecraft boys cant take you to court for your work (unless that work violates some other law).

not to mention if you look at the original tags on my post and the multiple posts ive made on the matter/replies, youll find that i believe that fanwork and other releated works CAN be meaningful and show a genuine love for the text. and youll also find other people agreeing that it feels more like people are more attached to the idea of fandom than the source material, which can be incredibly disheartening to see art increasingly chewed up and spit out for the same tropes. i really dont know what to say here other than you intentionally misread my argument, proceeded to try and say that just because something LEGALLY can exist, it's automatically of a high quality, and im getting sick of repeating myself to people who come into this automatically on bad faith.

if transformative and derivitive works are art, than they are not immune to criticism. fanwork occupies an odd space in art history (due to the unprecedented nature of intellectual property etc etc whatever if i get into copyright laws and cultural landscapes we'll be here all fucking day), and im allowed to say i find it an affront to the sensibilities that people insist on dumbing down meaningful works for the sake of easily consumable content. and im sick of repeating myself can you people look in the reblogs and replies to see if fifty other losers have said the same damn thing first. i have to see these.

[weekend-whip]

I CANT FIND HER EYE COLOR IN THE FIC BUT IF ITS FUCHSIA I WILL GO ABSOLUTELY FUCKING HAM. THIS MEANS MYSTAKE. DESPITE BEING ONI, HAS SOME SORT OF RELATION TO SURPRISE WHICH IS A DERIVITIVE OF LIGHTNING WHICH CAME FROM WOJIRA. THIS MEANS SHE HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH WOJIRA, SINCE SHE WAS PROBABLY THE FIRST ELEMENTAL MASTER OF SURPRISE DUE TO HER AGE

(Chapter 15, 19, and Chapter 28 it's referenced! :3)

Although, uh, she has nothing to do with Wojira (Mystake doesn't enter Ninjago until long after Wojira's sealed, and Wojira's only marginally connected to Lightning through Wind)

[exciting]

please do your anti-recommendation list !!!! dying to see if we hate the same ones >:)

I could very likely get hastag cancelled for this, but I essentially have very strong opinions about YA / NA fantasy novels that are doing the bare minimum, with fandoms that are absolutely rabid and I seldom see critical thought in? Enemies to lovers esque shit, but instead of the Romeo & Juliette (inherently problematic in itself) "we have ideological differences, potentially brought on by structures larger than ourselves, but at the core we are not that different, we overcome those differences to find love" it's very much "Boy abuses girl, boy treats girl like rabid animal. Girl abuses boy back. Often, couple is isolated from the outside world & develop a stockholm-esque love for each other. Boy sees girls scars, insert 'who did that to you!' even though boy has potentially hurt the girl just as badly (but iTs dIFfErEnT). Boy gets *righteously angry*, prior toxicities of relationship are brushed away, happily ever after". ALSO the very "Taming Of the Shrew" type trope of "domesticating a girl to make her fall in love" makes me go absolutely FERAL. NOT TO MENTION that often there is the most tokenistic diversity in these kinds of books, which makes me feel like exfoliating my face <3 I could keep going; realistically I have at least 5 essay-length rants locked & loaded at any one time about this genre in particular (is that cringe? Maybe, who cares, I'm hot <3)... but I'm obviously just stalling...

Anyway, my list of books you should not read but rather go and look at the One Star GoodReads section are:

Sarah J Maas' ACOTAR Series (Especially ACOSF, the one star reviews kept me afloat through that shitshow) AND her Crescent City Series (Criticism as above)... on that note, MOST books titled "A *blank* of *blank* and *blank*" are bound to be tropey & problematic; Leigh Bardugo's KOS series (Which she clearly just wrote to provide new content for the TV show, so pop off I guess... but it shouldn't be considered canon); Melissa Broder's The Pisces (the protag's head was a horrible place to be in); C.S. Pacat's Captive Prince Series (Do NOT)... also the classics like anything past like the halfway point of the first Twilight book (You only need to know up to the vampire reveal to be able to make fun of it <3); any Twilight BDSM derivitive (1. It's weird that there's more than one, 2. WattPad fictions are literally better than these); Harry Potter (Is the concept cool and a cultural cornerstone? Maybe. Is the writing style overrated? Absolutely); and, most importantly, as you probably gathered from above, I fucking HATE Taming of the Shrew <3

There are considerably more that I have read recently & hated with a passion because they were just badly written, but most of those were ARC's from the publisher and either unpublished or recently published so I feel bad slandering them lmao... anyway, bone apple tea, enjoy x

[up860711-blog]

Track 4 - Transentience

Objective:

Transentience is the second West Coast inspired track and what brings the whole EP to a close. I wanted to extrapolate further on the EP’s theme of distorted rhythms in a rudimentary, but interesting way.

Design:

While my two contemporary tracks on the EP are built around the use of western 12-tone and “Dhomont” plays with pitch. I wanted to arrange something entirely devoid of pitch used with any musicality. While “Dhomont” explores the extremes of sample destruction through Granular Synthesis, I wanted to manipulate and distort this patch through its transients and it’s struggle to cope with an inrrational BPM.

The Patch:

I began loading in Drum Samples that I thought would generate some interesting transients for me to be able to play with. I relied on my  HiHat generator module as I could very easily manipulate decay to extend transient length for variation. I sequenced a halftime rhythm with my kick arriving on the first beat and my snare on the third.

The hat generator was patched into a clock divider to turn the 8th note hats into a 12th note rhythm. I thought this would make for a more interesting rhythm over something more straight.

Finally, before routing my drum pattern to the mixer I patched it through two modules, the first being a bitcrusher and the latter being a delay. Various parametres of the bitcrusher were able to be modulated without a clock signal and create almost randomly generated crushes and distortions on different beats of my drum pattern.

I patched in a similar function to the delay module which added a very fast and tight delay effect. These two effects effects alone created a decent amount of variation and grit to an otherwise fairly standard beat. Upon rendering the track it was time to start manipulating it in ableton.

Composition:

I was heavily inspired by Francis Dhomont with my first west coast track, being one of my favourite electroacoustic composers, which is where it's title comes from. I wanted to continue with my theme of drum manipulation in a less derivitive way, while "Dhomont" relied on materials and extreme pitches from my manipulations I wanted to experiment with transients.

Keeping an audio clip "warped" in Ableton will cause it to remain static regardless of increases or decreases in tempo. Warping my drum pattern at 500bpm and then reducing the tempo to a mere 50bpm was enough to nearly destroy it's original recording. I set Ableton to try and read the transients as a beat. This caused the sample to have a CD skip kind of effect. Trying to understand readable information from the audio at such a low tempo created the glitchy destruction you hear on the final track.

I implemented a technique I had used in "Dhomont" to create more variations and destruction which involved heavy automation of the transposition function. The drum sample's stutters would either increase or decrease depending on which direction I transposed it. Sprinkling in delay and reverb created some extra space and a brief refuge for the listeners ears.

Schizophrenicly automating the tempo of my DAW and sample created a strange feeling. There is still rhythm and movement to this arrangement but it was fun finding ways to destroy that in unexpected ways. One moment you can follow and nod along to what sounds like the original beat, and then the next it disintegrates and all function of traditional rhythm is lost. It was challenging attempting to create something that ignored contemporary rhythm and harmony but still felt musical, whether I was successful is entirely subjective. Personally, I believe I've managed to create two pieces that reflect the west coast ethos.

[itsawritblr]

Michael Keaton's Morbius moment is everything terrible about Hollywood's IP decline.

Via GQ:

By Jack King

31 March 2022

Spoiler warning: Comic book movies aren't all bad, but they have contributed to a new movie-making default: the egregious, cynical mining of familiar intellectual properties. Morbius is the latest step in a potentially existential trend.

Morbius, as you might've already gleaned from the emphatic critical pans coming left, right and centre, is not a good movie. It is, in fact, the worst of the year so far. It has no redeeming qualities, from Jared Leto's monotonous, derivitive Blade rip-off — ah yes, another embarassing performance from the prince of prosthetics — to its absolute lack of formal imagination, inventive plotting, or technical acuity.

The final twenty-five minutes, a cookie-cutter duel between Leto's titular Decent Vampire and best friend turned nefarious bloodsucker Matt Smith in which they collide in the form of gaseous, amorphous blobs, could well be entirely digitalised. Jared Harris, perhaps the only innocent man across a rogue's gallery ensemble who have sold their artistic souls for a generous wage packet, is criminally wasted. At the best of times, it's akin to watching blood dry on a plaster; at the worst, it leaves you wishing for the oblivion the conflicting leads are so desperately trying to avoid.

Nevertheless, none of the above qualifies as Morbius' — nor Sony's — greatest sin.

When the first trailer came out back in November last year, attention was quickly drawn to the appearance of Michael Keaton, apparently playing some version of his Spider-Man: Homecoming villain Vulture. This was allegedly interesting because Morbius exists as part of a different continuity (in the present parlance, ‘universe’) to Homecoming, the latter being in Marvel's cinematic stable, the former in Sony's.

Spider-Man: No Way Home threw something of a wrench in the works with the introduction of the ‘multiverse,' a big ‘ol deus ex machina allowing said universes to overlap. Now, characters from each distinct brand can come into conflict — a new variant of Iron Man, for example, or Patrick Stewart’s twice-dead Professor X, or indeed three Spider-Men — the toys being mashed together by conglomerates desperate to milk as much as they can from an insatiable audience of foamy-mouthed fanboys.

As indicated by the trailer, this is what happens in Morbius. Sort of. For the most part, the movie is a self-contained story which, save for references to the Daily Bugle, could exist in a narrative vacuum: despite what we saw in that early trailer, there's no graffiti acknowledging the existence of Spider-Man, nor does it show much in the way of a sense of place. That is until after the film finishes, and we get the first post-credits scene.

As with the end of No Way Home, when the multiverse rips open and myriad villains threaten to enter Tom Holland's world, the New York skyline tears with a glistening shimmer. Cut to a prison cell: Michael Keaton's Vulture appears outta nowhere, apparently unperplexed by the fact that he has just been plucked from his own earth — and, y'know, his family, for whom his deep care and affection in the first MCU Spidey outting made him a compelling, well-rounded antagonist.

Because this universe has no record of an ‘Adrian Toombes' (another strike: what the fuck happened to the logic of variants?) he's immediately released. But wait! There's another post-credits sting, naturally — and this time, we find Morbius driving very fast on a dimly-lit highway.

Bear in mind that for most of the film, Morbius has been sold as a sympathetic anti-hero at worst, if not a somewhat flawed, virtuous protagonist. His impulse may be to consume human blood, but thanks to his own invention of a blue artificial replacement, he can quell his murderous instincts. He comes to a clearing next to the road: down swoops Vulture in his full MCU costume, which apparently also zipped over to the new world.

Cue Keaton going full Sam Jackson in Iron Man mode. “I've been reading up on your stuff,” he tells Morbius. “I'm putting together a team. You in?”

Yep.

Look, the Sinister Six has been inevitable for as long as Spider-Man has proven the most profitable intellectual property in the world. Sony already set up an attempt in the post-credits scene of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, eventually canned because that film was both a critical and commercial bust. The release of Venom back in 2018 signposted the intent to eventually return to the idea, and it has only been galivanised by the fervid fan reaction to No Way Home, and the reintroduction of Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire's old Spider-Men. As has been said numerous times, nostalgia is a helluva drug; but its close bedfellow, familiarity, is just as potent.

That is, after all, why the egregious mining of intellectual property has become Hollywood's default over the last decade and a half. Iron Man set the ball rolling in 2008, and once Avengers became one of the highest-grossing films of all time four years later, all bets were off: the more franchises you mash together, the more familiar faces that team up or otherwise come into conflict, the more butts you can get on seats. It isn't always an artistically vacant move, and even when it is, it can be enjoyable: No Way Home is a prime example of something you would consider a cynical commercial ploy at best, but you can equally appreciate the presence of demand, and that it was done in a reasonably interesting way.

No one has ever asked for a stand-alone Morbius picture; barely anyone asked for Venom, or a sequel to Venom, or something based on whoever ‘Kraven the Hunter' is. Not only is it cripplingly lazy to chuck IPs at a wall to see what sticks, it is nonsensical, and points to a deleterious lack of ingenuinity in Hollywood's pitching rooms and executive offices, rapidly transforming a once bountiful oasis of creativity into an intellectual desert. Once upon a time, the American movie business existed to challenge audiences, to stimulate debate, to make us feel something on a very fundamental level; now, the metric is finger-pointing recognisability.

Let's hope to god that Morbius flops. Because if it doesn't, that would imply that this is what audiences actually want. And if people really are willing to turn out in their droves and pay fifteen dollars a ticket for the filmic equivalent of an electric fly swatter being delivered, repeatedly, to one's skull, until the racket's wiry grid pattern becomes a permanent fixture: well, perhaps this is the cinema we deserve.

[dead-gay-bitxh]

Lots of cute McHanzo shit below the cut I’ve been thinking about since I saw this post about adopted kids and normalizing the idea of adopting

Imagine its either a modern AU where they’re married or they’ve just managed to find the downtime in canon to be able to care for a kid, so they adopt, and they adopt a nonbinary emo/goth 14-year-old who looks like they’re going to be a royal pain in the ass but is instead just kind of a really laidback kid that just wants a decent schedule and to be accepted by who they live with.

Their name is Xanthe btw, super edgy, but they prefer it over their birth name, Mary.

They do all the chores that Jesse and Hanzo tell them to do, usually do them before they’re told (brownie points with Hanzo, who initially expects them to be lazy and disagreeable), and even though they’re creeped out by Uncle Cyborg, they like to hang out with Genji when he comes by too

Jesse only lets Gabe babysit Xan once. When he calls to check in, Gabe’s at ‘work’ and took Xan with him, so Jesse and Hanzo are basically freaking the fuck out because their child is hanging out with the super edgy emo dad (even though Gabe and Xan get along great and like to talk about cults and joke about demon summonings)

Then he tries letting Jack babysit. Works about as well. Gabe calls and wants to do something and when Jesse asks why when he said explicitly that Xan was staying with him because Gabe didn’t work out, Jack just says ‘Hey, when the husband says we gotta go, we gotta go.’

Literally a week in, after Xan pops the whole ‘I prefer to not be called he or she, just they is fine’ they jokingly say ‘so which one of you is the wife?’ It makes Hanzo snort and laugh a little.

Jesse laughs too, until Xan goes further ‘I’m serious, every time you guys get in bed together I have to check under the door to make sure Otosan (since that’s how they distinguish each other instead of just using derivitives of ‘dad’) isn’t cheating with Ms Lacroix.’

Hanzo has to be picked up off the floor

then Xan casually mentions ‘im pretty sure ive seen both your dicks three times now’ Jesse laughs. Hanzo just runs to the bedroom and contemplates ending his life (not really)

eventually Xan just gets left home by themself when Hanzo and Jesse have to work (there’s always a gun within ten feet of the kid no matter where they’re at in the house and Jesse taught them how to use em how bad could it be) but people still come by anyway. Lena comes by to help with the already-done chores and instead just starts talking girls with Xan.

Hana comes by to play video games and eventually starts inviting them to her streams because DAMN they are good and actually has a 40-60 win-loss percentage against her

Genji loves the kid because even though Xan loves their otosan, they doesnt mind lightly joking about how serious he acts/looks all the time

the first big block party for Xanthe to meet everyone, Jesse and Hanzo are bewildered because so far this kid has been quiet and reserved and responsible but as soon as the party starts they’re pouring everyone vodka and pulling their phone out

the next morning, everyone’s got notifications and texts

lots of pictures of Jack and Gabe making out (sloppy and drunk), similar pictures of Sombra and Amelie, some really cute and innocent ones of Ana and Reinhardt and Torbjorn and Bastion and Orisa

directly underneath those are selfies with Junkrat drawn all over with magic marker

directly underneath those are really cute family photos of Hanzo and Jesse and Xan (the two dads have no clue when they were taken)

and then underneath those is one big family picture with half the ‘family’ fucking drunk off their asses, barely able to stand up, some of them half-naked, with Hana, Xan, Lucio, and Efi in the foreground taking the picture with writing down in the bottom

it says, in really light, happy handwriting, ‘Never Leaving These Dirtbags’ with a bunch of hearts and stickers around it

[culturaldispatch]

Time On A Budget XIII: Affordable Watches Under $60

A watch is an extension of the person wearing it. Yeah, I know that sounds a bit pretentious but it’s true. Why else would someone spend $25,000 on and obsess over a piece of jewelry that most people won’t even notice you’re wearing? But it’s not just a signifier of wealth. It can be a sign to others how you define yourself. I wear dive watches because I’m a scuba Instructor even though I haven’t actually timed a dive with my watch in over a decade. I use a dive computer instead. And to others a watch is something you just throw on your wrist that looks “pretty good.” Either way there are watches for everyone and listed here are a collection of good lucking watches that won’t break the bank while style maintaining a little bit of style. Some are better than others and in this review I try to point out the differences in what you are paying for.

Casio MTP4500D-1AV on a cheapestnatostraps.com leather strap

Before we get into it you can find previous installments of this series here.

Click here to keep reading.

Howk Tangente Homage - $20

Howk on a leather strap from a Timex Expedition with AJ Morgan Castro Sunglasses

Driven by the success of companies like Daniel Wellington and the German luxury brand Nomos the past few years has seen an explosion of watches influenced by the early-to-mid-century modernist design movements. At the low end this means there is a variety of Chinese minimalist designs to choose from that all look pretty good even if they aren’t high quality or particularly original in their styling. At the high end their are fantastically made German watches using Bauhaus design aesthetics like Stowa and the aforementioned Nomos.

On a red, white and blue NATO. Good look for the 4th of July or Bastille Day.

A new (to me) entry in that category is the Hook Bauhaus model which is a shameless Nomos Tangente ripoff/homage. Like most of these cheap Chinese watches of this type Howk is nothing more than a name used because…well… a watch should have a brand name on it. Like the Corgeuts or Deberts I’ve reviewed previously it’s a nonsense name that really does not mean much of anything. It’s just a way to legally sell replica watches in the US.

At first glance the Howk really is a fantastic looking little watch which is to be expected because there’s nothing at all original about it’s design. Like the Nomos that it’s aping it features a very tasteful use of an Avant Garde Condensed type of font for its numerals which gives it a cool 1930s feel. Another nice touch is the second hand is on the subdial at 6 o’clock which gives it a bit of a classy subdued look. At 38mm it fits nicely on most wrists and will fit under a shirt cuff.

The tech specs are nothing special but for $20 you should not be expecting much. The case is made from a cheap alloy which makes it very lightweight but not very durable. However, the movement itself is a japanese Miyota quartz movement which is about as reliable as a movement can possibly be. The Howk is water resistant to 30m which means it should be fine if you are washing your hands but I would not go swimming with it on. It also looks great on a variety of straps. 

The drilled lugs make it very easy to change out the stock strap.

As with most watches of this type the stock strap leaves a bit to be desired however this is far from the worst leather strap I’ve seen on a sub-$25 watch. I put it on the leather strap from a Timex Expedition Scout and thought that it looked even better than the stock strap. And of course it looks great on a brightly colored NATO strap. It’s an incredibly versatile watch.

On the wrist

The bottom line is this is a great watch for the price and I would easily put it in the same category as a Timex Weekender in terms of durability and quality. It has a leg up on the Timex in that it’s not cursed with the incredibly loud (but otherwsie reliable) Timex quartz movement. However a Weekender has the advantage of Indiglo which allows you to light up the watch at night. Unfortunately there is no lume or anything of the sort on the Howk. In low light you just won’t be able to see it. 

On an Eton Dot NATO 

The Kano Bauhaus inspired watch from the 1940s which influenced both Nomos and Howk.

There is no ignoring the fact that this is a watch that steals its looks from a far more expensive watch, the Nomos Tangente. In fairness to the Howk though the Nomos Tangente is not exactly an original design itself. It’s an updated take on a watch from the watchmaker Kano who was producing them in the glory days of Bauhaus design in the 1930s. It’s up to you rather the lack of originality on the part of the makers of the Howk watch bothers you. For an everyday $20 beater watch I’m not particularly bothered by it.

Note: It’s been pointed out to me that the Amazon listing for this watch list the lug width at 18mm. It’s actually 20mm.

Similar options: Timex Weekender, Timex Field Expedition

Seiko SNK809 - $55

SNK809 on a leather NATO from Crown & Buckle.

Suggesting a Seiko 5, particularly a member of the SNK family, as an intro to watch collecting is almost cliche. Damn near every list of this type is going to mention this watch. However, there’s a damn good reason for that which is that this watch is a fucking steal.

How many $55 watches have an exhibition caseback?

Very, very rarely do you find a company selling a mechanical, automatic watch with an in-house movement for less than $60. But Seiko has been doing just that with the Seiko 5 series of watches for over 50 years. The 5 in the Seiko watch branding comes from its features; 1) automatic winding, a day/date display, water resistance (which varies depending on the watch model,) recessed crown at 4 o’clock, and a durable case (which usually means it is made of stainless steel.) The SNK continues that long tradition admirably. While the watch automatically winds it’s 7s26c movement does not hack or hand-wind. Despite those drawbacks it’s an incredibly accurate and durable movement that also powers some far more expensive watches in the Seiko lineup (such as the venerable SKX007.)

On the wrist the pilot-inspired face is very easy to read even in low-light thanks to some pretty decent lume. It’s got a sporty look that is pretty easy to dress up or down on both leather and nylon straps. The look is pretty heavily inspired by the B-Uhr pilot watches worn by Luftwaffe pilots in the Second World War and coveted by collector’s ever since. 

A WWII vintage B-Uhr pilot watch. Much like Volkswagen and Fanta before it the B-Uhr style has managed to lose its association with NAZI Germany which is fortunate because it really is a great looking design. Many B-Uhr style pilot watches take their cues from the Luftwaffe originals and clock in at sizes of 44+ millimeters which on a wrist like mine is absolutely massive. The SNK is a far more manageable 37mm.

My only real complaint about the SNK is that the case is brushed stainless steel. This is purely personal preference but I would prefer it to have a slightly polished case. That’s not a deal breaker though. For less than $60 the SNK provides a damn near unbeatable bang for the buck in that you get an original (albeit derivitive) design, in-house movement and a build quality that punches above it’s weight.

Similar options: Seiko SNK80X in Blue, Green, or Cream, or the Seiko SNKK27

Casio MTP4500D-1AV Slide Rule Aviator - $52

Casio Aviator on a green ZULU strap

At it’s core the purpose of a wristwatch is to be a tool that tells time easily and at a glance. That is a simple purpose but its applications run the gamut from the mundane to the monumental. From a diver using their diver’s bezel to keep track of their bottom time to the crew of Apollo 13 using their Omega Speedmaster’s chronograph complication to correct for catastrophic failure of their moonbound spacecraft a variety of complications and modifications have been made to these watches to make them more useful tools for telling time.

One such modification that you don’t see quite as often on affordable watches is the slide rule bezel. Just as the name says the slide rule bezel allows a person to make calculations on the fly using the inner chapter ring on the watch dial and a moveable bezel to act as a slide rule. With this feature you can quickly convert MPH to KPH (and vice versa) and a host of other conversions a pilot may find useful on the fly when you don’t have the time to find a calculator. A Blog To Watch has a fantastic run down of how a slide rule bezel works.

On a SB NATO from Cincy Strap Works (which is one of the most comfortable NATOs I’ve ever worn) and the classic gold Aviators.

As with most of Casio’s quartz analog watches the MTP4500D-1AV is a particularly well made watch that could sell for twice the price with a higher end brand name on the face. With a 42mm stainless steel case and matching bracelet this piece looks like a million bucks. Much like the Slide Rule Aviator’s cousin the, EF-503D racing chronograph the bracelet is solidly constructed and is much better than what you would expect to find on a $60 watch. The 42mm case wears a bit smaller than similar sized watches thanks to its thinner bezel and shorter lugs.

The movement is a Miyota chronograph with the chronograph complications being the center second hand, and the 9 and 12 o’clock subdials. I particularly like having the watch’s second hand at the 6 o’clock subdial. It makes the quartz tick-tock a bit more subtle. Add in a 50m depth rating and this would be a great watch to bang around with in the summer. You can’t go snorkeling with it but it should do fine hopping in and out of a pool.

Aesthetically this is a conversation starting tool watch. With the numbers abound on the dial and with the chronograph functions I don’t think anyone would ever call this watch “minimal.” That being said it still looks great and the orange accents on the bezel and second hands help the watch to stand out. My only complaint is the same one I have with most chronographs, which is that it’s too hard to read the time with a quick glance.

The lume is nothing to write home about. If you’re wearing it for a while in the sun it will be really visible for about 30 minutes once you go indoors.

And the bracelet is a bit too 90s for my taste but that’s neither here nor there.

If you’re looking for something in the tool watch realm that wears well, has a little bit of versatility, and is a bit different than your standard chronograph check out the MTP4500D-1AV (I really wish they would give these watches real names.)

Similar options: Casio EF-503D (which unfortunately is getting much harder to find)

Casio MDV-106 Revisited - $45

MDV-106 on a BOND Nato strap

The reigning champion of inexpensive summer watches. This isn’t the first time I’ve suggested this watch and it definitely won’t be the last. With stainless steel construction, 120 click bezel, miyota quartz movement, and 200m of water resistance this is a tool watch that punches well above its weight class. It’s understated designs pulls from a whole history of classic dive watches without being overly revertential or a homage. It’s a watch that truly does stand on it’s own two feet. 

When I teach scuba classes this is the watch that I suggest my students get to start out as a backup to their dive computers. It will take whatever beating you want to throw at it and do so very easily.

On a minimalist silicone strap

The included rubber strap is a resin band that is fine but I do find it a bit too big for my wrists. I wound up replacing it with a minimalist silicone band and a Bond NATO strap. Perhaps my only complatint about the MDV-106 is its size.

Coming in at a hefty 44mm it definitely makes a statement and isn’t something I would feel to comfortable wearing with a suit or even business casual. But for a Sunday beater to wear on a boat or camping it’s a very hard watch to beat.

Similar Options: Invicta 8926OB, Invicta 8932OB, or the Stuhrling Aquadiver

Thanks for reading. I’ve posted higher res versions of all of the photos on Imgur here if you wanted to take a closer look at everything.